<< Background >>The PREP IP project responds to the need of practicing rehabilitation professionals to develop key competencies to better meet the unique health needs refugees. Ultimately this will contribute to their health and well-being as well as to their inclusion, and social cohesion and community diversity. It will be achieved by: •building the capacity of a transnational and transdisciplinary network of partners to jointly support health professionals •developing open online course and open educational resources (OER) to provide accessible, inclusive, and equitable services to refugees•documenting in a case study this unique partnership for inclusion, capturing experiences and strategies in building partnerships across sectors, professional, cultural and geographical boundariesPREP IP addresses two Erasmus+ program priorities: inclusion and digital transformation. The project focuses on inclusion of needs of refugees into the health and rehabilitation training and education, making higher education institutions (HEI) more accessible and inclusive of refugees, both on curricular and practical levels. Second, participating HEI use digital learning and OERs to transform the way they offer programs for practicing professionals. The project is a partnership of higher HEI and service providers. It bridges the gap between education and practice and addresses the skills mismatch between what has been taught in university programs and what practicing rehabilitation professionals’ need to serve refugees. The project also strategically positions a network of HEIs as providers of life-long learning opportunities by improving access to evidence, and facilitating interactions between practitioners, academics, and researchers. There is an urgency to respond to the prolonged, unprecedented global refugee crisis. In 2019 almost 80 million people were forcibly displaced due to wars, persecution, violence, and human rights violations; 85% were hosted in developing countries. Turkey hosted 3.6 million refugees from Syria, the largest number in the world, while Bangladesh hosted 909,000 Rohingya refugees. In Europe, Germany was host to 1.1 million refugees. Neither health systems nor health and rehabilitation professionals have been well prepared to deal with this still evolving crisis. Many refugees have complex health needs, both physical and mental, that are a result of a cumulative trauma experienced in their home countries, during dangerous journeys, or in the period of adjustment in their new country. These needs are often presented as a combination of complex health and wellness manifestations, including impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions and require an interprofessional response. Many refugees lack access to services and facing multiple barriers from cultural differences, differences in socio-economic status, high costs and ineligibility to local health financing schemes, discrimination, adverse living conditions, and lack of information about health rights and entitlements within local healthcare system. Refugees who are women, children, older people, and people with disabilities face multiple discrimination. The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated these problems. However, it is important to note that this diverse and non-homogenous group also comes with resources in terms of resilience that could be used in the healing process.To support the development of competent workforce World Health Organization is developing the Global Competency Standards for Health Workers providing services to refugees and migrants. This presents an opportunity for HEI with health professional programs to improve access to educational resources and offer lifelong learning opportunities. PREP IP project builds on the results of successful Erasmus+ projects that focused on physiotherapy education and refugees (PREP) and interprofessional psychosocial interventions for refugees (InterAct).<< Objectives >>The extended group of partners, including groups that implemented two refugee centered Erasmus+ projects, came together to develop this proposal that builds on the lessons learned and addresses the needs expressed by different stakeholders during the implementation of previous projects. PREP IP will use good practices from previous projects and employ them to expand the project across professional and geographic boundaries and bridge the gap between practice and education provided by higher education institutions. This requires a transnational and transdisciplinary network that builds capacity of health professionals to address the health and well-being of refugees in an inclusive, comprehensive way in different settings globally. While there is a better access to knowledge and resources in high income European countries, the burden of caring for refugees is on developing countries where health human resources, infrastructure and health systems are of limited capacity but where health professionals have wealth of knowledge and experiences to share on achieving results with scarce resources. The project will focus on the demands of effective interprofessional cooperation in meeting the specific rehabilitation needs of a population that currently provides serious challenges to the delivery of services within existing health care systems if professionals do not want to perpetuate or exacerbate existing health inequities. The WHO global action plan that calls for support of the training of all personnel working with refugees, inclusion of refugee health into training for health workers and knowledge sharing in order to implement affordable and appropriate refugee-sensitive health interventions in any given setting. PREP IP is fully aligned with this action plan by focusing on inclusion of refugee health and persons with refugee experiences within health professional education and training programs at HEIs. It utilizes digital technologies to maximize availability of and access to resources and training in the various settings globally. The project has four objectives:1.Develop a transnational and transdisciplinary network of partners working in the field of refugee rehabilitation and health by building on good practices2.Provide an open online training opportunity for an interprofessional group of rehabilitation professionals3.Develop open educational resources focusing on rehabilitation, health and well-being of persons with refugee experience4.Document experiences and practices of development of a partnership for inclusion<< Implementation >>In order to achieve the project objectives, a series of interrelated activities grouped into four work packages will be implemented:WP1. Interprofessional framework for online education of health professionals working with refugees Activities in this work packaged are grouped in three groups:- Activities related to capturing good practices of partners in implementation of refugee focused projects funded by Erasmus+ and other funding agencies to be utilized in this project. It is the first step in building the partnership and setting the stage for other project work packages - Activities related to development of interprofessional framework for online education of health professionals working with refugees- Activities related to mapping out the literature on use of micro-credentials for online interprofessional education in order to explore feasibility of introducing micro-credentials for the course that will be developed in this project. Micro-credentialing is a new area of interest for higher education institutions as they explore their role in life-long learning and better matching competences of their graduates with the market needs.WP2. Open online course: Working with persons with refugee experienceIn order to develop an interprofessional open online course, following activities will be implemented:- design and development of the open online PREP IP course curriculum (identification of course outcomes, learning resources and activities, assessments; building the course in the learning management system)- piloting open online PREP IP course (recruitment of learners, facilitation of the course)- review and revision of the course (learners' and facilitators' evaluation)- implementation of the revised courseWP3. Open educational resourcesActivities in this work package include preparation of three type of OERs: an open book and photovoice exhibitionWP4. Case Study: Partnership for inclusionActivities in this WP include actively documenting experiences of building a partnership within this project to ensure inclusion of refugee health within higher education, which will be made available online and disseminated through national and international, profession-specific and interprofessional networking activities.<< Results >>There are four major project results: - Result ID1: Interprofessional framework for online education of health professionals working with refugees: Building on good practices - Result ID2: Open online course: Interprofessional approach to working with refugees - Result ID3: Open educational resources, including open book and photovoice- Result ID4: Case study: Partnership for inclusion The project is also expected to result in the following outcomes at organizational, European and international levels:Organizational level:- New interprofessional approaches to improving inclusion and diversity in curriculum of health professional education and training programs at HEI by focusing on health and well-being of persons with refugee experiences- Improved ability of HEIs to offer flexible, online learning opportunities focused on refugee health European and international level:- Increased capacity of a network of European and international higher education institutions and refugee health service providers to support health professionals by providing open online course and open educational resources focusing on health needs of persons with refugee experiences - Improved synergies between HEI and refugee health service providers in various settings to respond to the training needs of health professionals serving persons with refugee experiences in various settings- Improved availability and accessibility of OERs relevant for refugee health globally- Strengthened cooperation with partners from other countries in the field of interprofessional education and training- Improved global exchange: learning from understandings and approaches in different European countries as well as different parts of the world reflecting the global dimension of the current refugee situation and the World Health Organization’s global perspective on dealing with this challenge